“Unworthy,” I hissed. I withdrew the blades and slammed them home one more time. It bucked again, and the faint hiss of air bubbled through the blood that was still pumping from its throat, but more slowly. And slower still.

Then there was no more gurgling. No more fighting to escape. Only the last escaping breath ripe with the smell of Vigil flesh. There was a bead of moisture on my bottom lip. I’d ripped out its throat with such speed that only a drop of blood touched my mouth. I touched it with the tip of my tongue, sampled it. It tasted like poison and death and the rich earth of a long-forgotten graveyard.

It wasn’t half bad.

“Cal. Come back.”

I looked up, a boiling acid glare through the strands of black hair that fell over my face. “My kill. Mine.” The words hurt my throat. Weren’t right. They twisted and knotted the air, they didn’t flow through it.

“Cal, I told you I was bringing you back with me. All of you. I meant it. Now come back.” I recognized that voice. He was there the first time I’d come back from . . . that place. He’d been there, waited for me. My brother.

Like he was waiting for me now—in the warehouse, not at a burned trailer. No, not waiting. He’d been with me to hell and back. Blown hell to hell and back.

I laughed. It didn’t sound quite right either, but better than the words I’d spat.

“Cal, now.” There were hands on my arms, gripping hard.

I let go of one of the dirks and rubbed my eyes, then the blood from my mouth. “Nik.”

The random mixing of colors I’d seen settled into olive skin, with a touch of green from the gate travel, dark blond hair, warning eyes. My brother’s face. “The Vigil,” he said softly enough only I could hear and steely enough to let me know I was on the edge of Auphe-ing myself into the Vigil’s classification of overt as King Kong pregnant with Mothra’s baby, and telling Oprah all about his mood swings.

I’d been as fast as an Auphe, killed an Auphe in seconds, spoke Auphe, had been considering . . . no one needed to know what I was considering. I didn’t need to know. But I did know. I knew what Auphe did with their prey.

The Auphe’s heart stopped under me.

It had stopped breathing a moment before, but sometimes the heart takes some time to catch up. It did, and this time my brain did explode. I fell off the Auphe, over onto my back, and began convulsing. There had been lights in my brain. A dark and grim constellation, always there but I’d never known it. I knew now because they all blinked out. They very last one wavered, faded, and disappeared. The half-genetic, half-telepathic web was gone. I’d only known about the connection for days, but it felt like millions of neurons were dying. It was as if every single star in the universe went out. Every single one.

Now I really was the Last Mohican.

Nik’s hand was on my shoulder as he turned me from back to side, in case I vomited. “Get away,” I heard him snap, probably to Samuel. Let’s face it, all the Zen in the world wasn’t getting Nik over Samuel’s onetime serving of the Auphe. Seeing me actually taste Auphe blood, though, no big deal. I had the little-brother-get-out-of-jail-free-forever card. Big brothers. “Cal, can you hear me?”

I could hear him, but I couldn’t keep my teeth from chattering long enough to answer. And I thought three things—the last was the worst by far and away. The first, seizures were bad. The second, seizures could kill you. Third, seizures could make you piss your pants. Dear God, don’t let me piss my pants, I thought desperately as the thrashing turned to shuddering and from there to utter limpness. Niko moved me onto my back again. Someone had already dragged the Auphe away. “Can you hear me?” he repeated tightly.

“Tell me . . .” I swallowed and blinked, vision clearing. “Tell me . . . I didn’t . . . piss myself.”

He bowed his head for a moment, shoulders relaxing, then looked up to slap my face lightly. “Not so much that you’d notice, little brother.”

I glared with hazy eyes. “You suck, you know that?”

Samuel ignored Niko’s warning for a moment, either a brave man or a stupid one, and moved closer. “They’re watching,” he muttered low. “If Niko hadn’t pulled you out of it, I don’t think they’d just be watching.”

Yeah, I’ll bet the Vigil was watching—or what was left of them. “He still sucks,” I mumbled. I tried to get my hands under me to push up. The dizziness was sharp, my muscles like spaghetti, and I nearly fell, but Nik braced me with one hand behind my back. My legs weren’t cooperating yet. “I think I’m going to puke.” I closed my eyes. “Or die. Or both.” A hand grasped my face and shook it carefully until my eyes opened. Niko looked into them. Apparently, what he saw satisfied him and he exhaled with more emotion than he usually let show. “I think you’ll recover, wet pants and all.”

I looked down automatically and scowled at perfectly dry jeans. “I repeat, you suck.”

“So you keep saying. Do you remember anything?” he asked, pulling my face back up to get my eyes on his. “You acted like you remembered something. From before.”

“Before” meant only one thing with us. When the Auphe had me for two years. I frowned and for a second . . . I had known something when I took out the Auphe. Remembered something, hadn’t I? To kill it like I had, I would’ve had to, because that wasn’t me. I was good at killing, but not like that. Not that fast, not that hungry to see death. I held my breath, scared shitless, that I did remember. That the flood-gates would open and wash me away. But it didn’t. My head hurt and felt weirdly empty and dark, but no lost memories lurked there. At least not anymore. “No.” I slumped slightly in relief. “Not a damn thing.” I looked over to see five remaining Vigil, not counting Samuel, rolling the Auphe up in a tarp to put in one of their vans that was pulled up to the now-open door. “They took out twenty-five Vigil in, what, two seconds? Twenty-five men with machine guns. How the hell did we pull it off?”

“You said you would outthink them.” Nik helped me to my feet. “You kept your word.” He sounded as if he hadn’t expected anything different. Like I said, big brothers. They had faith in you when you’d forgotten what the word meant.

With an emotion so huge I didn’t have a name for it, I watched as the last Auphe in the world was hidden from sight. The hell with the dizziness, the bile burning my throat, my brain turned to red-hot cinders. They were gone. Jesus Christ, they were gone.

Except for one half-blood who for at least a minute had been every bit the Auphe he had killed.

“Think we got them all?” Samuel said, his still-smoking Uzi in one hand, as he steadied me as I swayed with his other hand. Niko allowed it . . . barely.

With Nik on one side, his hand now gripping my upper arm in protective support, and Samuel on the other, they managed to keep me upright as the relief faded a little. “I thought that once. I’m not sure I’ll ever think that again.” But the darkness in me told me different—they were gone.

“But for now . . .” Nik said.

“Yeah, for now.” It wasn’t a grin. It was too twisted for that, but it was satisfied, like I’d never been so satisfied in my life.

“Time for you to go,” Samuel said. “Even around here someone was bound to notice this.” The Vigil were already bagging up their own dead now. “And I think you might want to consider us even now. At least from the Vigil’s point of view, if not mine. No more favors.”

Then he let go of me, face serious. “Stay strong. Keep your head down.” Then he walked toward the doors and passed through.

Keep it down, because the Vigil had seen what I’d done. I didn’t think I could do it again, had no idea how I’d done it at all, but in their eyes, half Auphe might be too much Auphe.

As I steadied myself on my feet, the dizziness and headache were fading fast. Too fast for a human. But probably about right for the last Auphe. The Vigil might be right, saw what Niko didn’t want to. That was definitely a thought for another time. I wasn’t ruining this. Nothing could ruin this. I said, “I think I want a beer. If Ish will let me in the place. I want one beer, and I want to feel normal.”